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Shambles

Professional cycling continues its long, long decline into a powder that doesn’t even contain alcohol.

Reported today in Velonew, Cycling News, Eurosport (essentially the same article) an extensive Belgian raid was conducted on Quickstep. You know, the team that has the current and [penultimate SIC says Zoe] 2005 world champions. According to reports doping products were found.

Also reported in separate articles, 32 year old Frank Vandenbroucke has attempted suicide and nearly succeeded. His palmares include Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the monument race where you have to climb, have extreme endurance and the governor on your gas pedal is removed. Let’s call it a doper’s monument, as such luminaries of the doping game (I believe Tyler! Do it for Tugboat!) have it in their trophy case as well.

Probably safe to say that Quickstep will be out of the Tour. The remarkable thing about pro racing? It has completely imploded into a scam somewhat on par, perhaps beneath professional wrestling, but it has SO FAR yet to go!

But Lance Armstrong didn’t dope. You got that? He put out 110% of his VO2max on Alp de Huez in 2001, but he did that through training. You got that? As they say with special respect to Armstrong, that one will be a tough nut to crack.

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2 thoughts on “Shambles”

While I agree with everything you say, I … can’t help my editor brain. “Penultimate,” hmm, that doesn’t feel like the right word. It means the next to last, as if Bettini were to be the final world champion in the history of the sport. (Not that such a thing might not be such a bad idea – to just put some big races on hold for the time being to force some kind of change. But that’ll never happen.)